Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Of Course the Kid Down the Street is Running a Million Dollar Drug Ring (Updated)

Update: 17-year-old Tyler Pagenstecher, the high-school drug czar, as he's come to be known, was sentenced to six months to three years in juvi Monday on charges stemming from his $20,000-a-month pot operation. The judge sent him to prison, but remarked that he's “a pretty fine young person that went down a bad trail.”

Pagenstecher spoke at the sentencing hearing, acknowledging that the stakes might have been higher than he thought. And his mom, well, she said what moms say. Via the AP:

“I understood that I would get in trouble but not to the level or extent this has become, and I sincerely regret all of this,” said the pale, bespectacled, soft-spoken teen. “If I could take it all back, I would.”

His mother, Daffney Pagenstecher, also spoke to the judge, saying her son “just thought he was using a recreational drug and selling it to his friends, and that was it.”

“He wasn’t out to become, you know, a big drug dealer,” she said. “He didn’t buy a new car. He didn’t buy fancy clothes. He wasn’t making the money that a drug dealer would make and flaunting it.”

See, it's OK, because he wasn't flaunting it. — Grzegorek

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Ever been to Mason, just north of Cincinnati? It's one of those suburban no-places sitting off the interstate — housing divisions, chain restaurants, gas stations, repeat. And evidently pretty good turf for a precocious youngster to make his way in the drug slinging game.

According to the Enquirer, a unnamed 17-year-old high school boy was recently arrested as part of a large drug bust. Instead of getting caught up in the machinations of older ne'er-do-wells, it looks like the kid was the instrumental boss-hog of the enterprise.

But Warren County law enforcement officials say the Mason High School student headed up a $3 million drug ring and was suspected of selling about $20,000 in marijuana per month.

He allegedly had six current and former Mason High School students working under him to be a significant source of marijuana for students in Mason and Kings school districts.

He was smart enough not to deal on school grounds, officials said.

The high school czar was taken down as part of a large police investigation into marijuana production in the area. About 200 plants were taken down at local houses, as well as at a furniture warehouse. When the trail finally led to the high schooler, he allegedly had about $6000 hidden in his bedroom.